Eugenics in the Work of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin’s ideas have dangerous implications that people with influence have applied to the detriment of millions of people around the world. These ideas are not simply ideas, they are the underlying presuppositions to government policy, school curriculum, and have practical implications in the daily lives of many people.

One of Darwin’s ideas was that certain classes (and races) of people should not be allowed to breed, because of their inferiority. He wrote: “hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed,” and by this he makes the suggestion that “the weaker and inferior members of society not marry … so freely as the sound.”

The full context for these quotes is provided below:

Natural Selection as Affecting Civilized Nations.—In the last and present chapters I have considered the advancement of man from a former semi-human condition to his present state as a barbarian. But some remarks on the agency of natural selection on civilized nations may be here worth adding. This subject has been ably discussed by Mr. W. R. Greg, and previously by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Galton. Most of my remarks are taken from these three authors. With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself while performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage.

(Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, in Two Volumes – Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton and Company. pp. 161-162.)

Francis Galton was an energetic promoter of Eugenics. Eugenics is that field of study that advocates the engineering of society to ensure that only the best breed, and the worst of society are eradicated. Galton was an inspiration to Darwin (as Darwin mentions in his The Descent of Man). Galton suggested a program to promote Eugenics:

Persistence in setting forth the national importance of eugenics. There are three stages to be passed through: (I) It must be made familiar as an academic question, until its exact importance has been understood and accepted as a fact. (2) It must be recognized as a subject whose practical development deserves serious consideration. (3) It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious, tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction. The improvement of our stock seems to me one of the highest objects that we can reasonably attempt. We are ignorant of the ultimate destinies of humanity, but feel perfectly sure that it is as noble a work to raise its level, in the sense already explained, as it would be disgraceful to abase it. I see no impossibility in eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind, but its details must first be worked out sedulously in the study. Overzeal leading to hasty action would do harm, by holding out expectations of a near golden age, which will certainly be falsified and cause the science to be discredited. The first and main point is to secure the general intellectual acceptance of eugenics as a hopeful and most important study. Then let its principles work into the heart of the nation, which will gradually give practical effect to them in ways that we may not wholly foresee.

(Galton, F. (1904). ‘Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims,’ The American Journal of Sociology. Volume X, Number 1; July 1904).

What better way to give effect to the evolutionary inspired Eugenics program than to neuter the general population by converting them to homosexuality and lesbianism? Same-sex unions are sterile. The end of the road for the same-sex community is obliteration. The political entrenchment of same-sex marriage would ensure that a body of law protects the wholesale proselytizing of the general population to the homosexual and lesbian lifestyle – any objections to that process would be met with litigation, expensive fines, jail time, and possibly death in the longer term. And the end result? Well, the better classes, of course, will continue to marry off their sons and daughters to strong breeders. The lesser classes would gradually die off, and the Eugenics proponents would achieve their long-term goal.